Beware the bubble

The bubble is not a new concept.  As children most of us learned the story of the “The Emperor’s New Clothes” where a ruler gets talked into going naked in public because no one will tell him he’s wearing no clothes.  As adults, we hear it often associated with politics as when David Gregory on "Meet the Press" refers to “the Beltway bubble” and Bill Maher had a segment on his show during the recent elections called “Dispatches from the Bubble.”

Let’s face it, no one enjoys hearing bad news and so as human beings we often close ourselves away from it and put up protective walls.  Whether it’s our choice of friends or the news channels we watch, it’s reassuring to surround ourselves with people that think and see the world like us. 

But just as the Emperor suffered great embarrassment when his bubble was burst, so we run the risk of leaving ourselves/our companies/our brands open to criticism, embarrassment and brand erosion when we fail to open our eyes and ears to the negative perceptions around our products and brands.   And it doesn’t matter if what’s said is accurate or not, in the world today content is seen as truth whether it’s a well-researched piece of journalism or a random comment or blog post on the web.  All it takes is one negative comment or review that gets picked up and shared and suddenly millions of dollars and many years work building your brand can be brought down in days.

I’ll give you a personal example.  Back in September my company conducted some internal focus groups using employees as proxies for the general public.  We were asked questions about our general eating habits, our perceptions of healthy and the category of health, and we discussed products in general and our products and company specifically trying to get a better and broader sense of the challenges we face and opportunities we have.  In my group, I made it a point to answer honestly – taking off the hat of employee and executive, and answering both as myself and as the general public attitudes toward our company.   It was amazing to see how uncomfortable that made people.  I wasn’t saying horrible things, I was merely acknowledging that there are people that don’t think the best of us – but it was clearly bumping up against our corporate bubble. 

In December, our company was targeted by a hedge fund manager accusing us of all sorts of bad business practices and dishonest motives.  Much of what he said was flat out false, but the stock took a substantial hit and internally people were shocked that this could happen.  However, had anyone looked outside the bubble, his accusations wouldn’t have been so surprising and we might have been better prepared.

As brand managers and marketers, it is our job to craft messages that speak to people in ways that make them feel good about our products and brands.  But to do that and do it well, we must be prepared to take the bad with the good and listen to our detractors as much, if not more, than the people that love us.  Whether it’s traditional methods like focus groups or new means like monitoring social media, we are not doing our jobs if we are not listening, hearing and acknowledging all the opinions out there.  And yes, there are going to be people that say bad things just to say them, as social media specialist Beverly Macy says, “haters gonna hate.”  But if we shy away from listening than the haters have a much better chance of winning.

It’s not easy to hear negative and even harder to have to represent that point of view within the company but that is the job of a brand manager.  After all, if you build your brand out of a house made of bubbles, it may look shiny and bright for a time but they will inevitably burst leaving nothing but soapy mess to clean up.